Saturday, March 3, 2012

As I mentioned yesterday, 31 Days of Oscar has come to an end for another year. Today being a Saturday, it means the return of The Essentials. Alec Baldwin is no longer co-hosting (and I doubt it had anything to do with his well-publicized rants); for this year, TCM has brought in Drew Barrymore to sit down with Osborne. She's the granddaughter of John Barrymore, and John and his brother (ie. Drew's great-uncle) Lionel both appear in Dinner at Eight, which is part of this year's Essentials on May 26 and November 10. I don't think I saw any of the movies of Drew's father, John Drew Barrymore, in the list. Probably not much of a surprise, since John Drew never really made any truly great movies, unless you want to count High School Confidential! in that list. A bit more surprising is that great-aunt Ethel doesn't seem to show up, either; you'd think Portrait of Jennie or None But the Lonely Heart might be deserving of a mention.

As for this first week of The Essentials, we get the classic comedy Some Like It Hot at 8:00 PM, with a special late-night second feature, This is Spinal Tap, overnight at 2:00 AM.